We are happy to introduce a new column which we have self-titled “Brunettes on Books.” If the title does not explain well enough, we are two (brunette) English majors who have a passion for all (well, mostly) things literary. Our names are Kristi Murray and Becca Gasperoni. We have taken the past six consecutive blocks together, save for a semester abroad. We advise you to think of us less as two separate opinions, but rather as one super-opinion.
For our first selection, we have chosen Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Marriage Plot,” a novel that explores the lives of three young academics following their graduation from Brown University in 1982. We must admit that this selection is a bit self-indulgent, as the main character is a young English major, Madeline Hanna, who shares our love for Austen, Derrida, and “A Lover’s Discourse.” Perhaps this is why we feel so connected to this book, because we recognize so much of ourselves in Eugenides’ female protagonist.
We first meet Madeline at the very end of her college career, hungover and still in her clothes from the night before. It is the morning of her graduation, and to add more stress to Madeline’s already disheveled morning, her parents are in Providence for the ceremony and a celebratory brunch. At this brunch, we meet one of Madeline’s two male love interests, the overly sentimental religion major Mitchell Grammaticus. Madeline’s mother mentions the other male interest, Leonard Bankhead, in an inquiry about her summer plans to move in with her boyfriend.
For the first half of the book, the backstory of these two boys comes to life in the alternating narratives between Madeline and Mitchell. By intertwining timelines, the novel follows the three students on the day of their graduation, through their senior year and their first year out of college.
This book states all the things that it is not. It tries to be about love and marriage, but as the New York Times states, it is about “the drama of coming to age.” The book itself attaches to the idea of falling in love, of the marriage plot, of the prospects of academia, when in reality the plot isn’t really about any of these things at all, but rather, paints a picture of the uncertainty of reaching adulthood and finding yourself in a world that is unrecognizable.
Even the book’s heavy references to Derrida’s theory of deconstruction are self-referential in the way it examines how we cling to the system of signs that make up our daily lives. And through that system of signs, we cope with uncertainty and trauma and heartbreak.
The beginning of “The Marriage Plot,” states that English majors are “pursuing degrees doing something no different than what they’d done in the first grade: reading stories.” In some ways, this is an undeniable truth. We believe in good stories, and this is a good story.